


Every Little Thing

by alsointogiraffe



Category: Social Network (2010) RPF
Genre: Fluff, Kid Fic, Kidfic, M/M, Preschool, Schmoop, teacher
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-29
Updated: 2012-10-29
Packaged: 2017-11-17 07:43:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/549206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alsointogiraffe/pseuds/alsointogiraffe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jesse starts to wonder whether it's normal that he's fallen in love with his daughter's preschool teacher. He kind of has his doubts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Every Little Thing

**Author's Note:**

> First attempt at TSN RPF. All for [laheysmash](http://archiveofourown.org/users/laheysmash) (and all her fault).

“Daddy, _Daddy_ , not so tight. I don’t like my braids that tight. It makes my head hurt.”

Braiding is an art that Jesse probably will never conquer, considering he’s been doing it every day for almost two years now—ever since Sophia’s hair has been long enough to braid. He does his best, but they always turn out a little funky and lopsided. He’s learned that when he does one in the back, instead of two on the sides, she can’t actually see the braid to complain, but today she insisted on two. The problem is that they’re running late and there’s no time to fix the horrid mess he’s made of her hair. He has to leave it as is and say, “Sorry, Soph, there’s no time to fix it.”

Sophia looks a little like she wants to throw a fit, but Jesse distracts her long enough by quickly handing her her favorite glasses, the ones with the square rims that she’s outgrowing but refuses to have replaced, and then her lunchbox, and then a toothbrush, and her jacket, before suddenly realizing she’ll probably fall over if he hands her anything else. He takes everything back but the toothbrush and says, “Go brush your teeth, please. Get this all done and we may have time to fix those braids of yours.” Sophia sighs but obliges, knowing better than to interfere with Jesse’s plans when he’s feeling as frantic as he is right now. Jesse is grateful, and reminds himself to try to google again when he gets the chance _how to braid hair without it looking like a tangled ponytail_.

Sophia brushes her teeth and puts on her jacket and glasses, and she clutches her lunchbox while bouncing up and down. She waits for Jesse to get his own jacket on and find his car keys before finally looking down at her. “Braids?” she asks with a wide grin.

“Yeah,” Jesse says with an exasperated laugh, and bends down to try again to put together two coherent braids.

He doesn’t, but he has to be at a meeting in forty-five minutes, and there’s no time to fix them again. Sophia sighs, but otherwise accepts the fact, and he gets her into her car seat and they leave right away for her preschool.

They get there and he jogs quickly inside. Once he notices Sophia running to catch up, he slows down and reminds himself to prioritize. He gets her into the classroom, kisses her on the cheek, tells her to have a good day and to have lots of fun and that he’ll see her at three. She agrees and smiles and waves goodbye. He waves back, but once he’s around the corner, picks up his pace to try to get to work on time.

: :

So, mornings are hectic, but thankfully things always are calmer after that, once all of his meetings and deadlines are over with, and he gets to work from home again. (He thought working from home as a writer meant never having to leave his house for work-related things, but he was sorely, sorely mistaken. Apparently, if he wants his works published and paychecks made, he has to actually leave his house, because apparently the opportunities aren’t coming to him). Once Sophia is home from school, he’s much better about focusing his attention on her.

They drive home from school and she tells Jesse eagerly about her day (“And don’t worry about the braids, Daddy, because Mr. Andrew helped me fix them.” Jesse turns around at a red light to look that them and Sophia shakes her head back and forth, showing off the braids which, all right, are sort of impressively neat.) Once they get home, she tosses her lunchbox on the ground (they’re working on cleanliness, okay?), Jesse reminds her to pick it up, she pets their two cats, Fred and George (two bright orange tomcats), and then she sits down for a snack and continues to go on talking about her day.

It’s a routine, but it’s a nice one that Jesse has no complaints about. Sophia adores talking, which she most certainly inherited from her mother, but Jesse likes listening, so it’s okay. At this point, he hangs up any art she made that day up on the fridge—it rotates a lot, but he makes sure to always have three or four of her favorite drawings up there. Then she plays with her toys while he works in the living room for a bit, and then he makes dinner and they eat. Then she bathes and gets ready for bed.

They go to Jesse’s room and sit down next to each other on his big bed. She buries herself under his blankets and listens extremely attentively while he reads her a story. This part isn’t just routine for them; it borders on ritual. One of the only times he ever got a babysitter for her was just under a year ago, and, though she was nice (he could only hope, after two interviews with her and, like, a million background checks), he forgot to tell her about their bedtime story routine. When the babysitter didn’t do it right, Sophia started crying for what was apparently hours. He ended up getting a phone call halfway into the event he was at, and he came home immediately. He made note to work on easing the separation anxiety, but he’s thinking that preschool has helped.

Even so, the stories are still a must. They read a lot of tougher books, some of Jesse's favorites, which he knows she doesn't understand fully, but reads them anyway because she insists. Even though she’s already four, they revert back to some of the more simple Dr. Seuss books now and again, because she’s already determined to learn how to read. She’s doing very well (she can recognize “Cat” and “Hat” and other similar words), and Jesse is very proud of her. He’s also grateful she shares with him a love for reading, because he doesn’t know what he’d do if she didn’t.

After they finish the story, Jesse walks with Sophia back to her room and tucks her in and tells her goodnight. Now and again he has to check for monsters or shut the curtains a certain way or buy a nightlight, but for the most part, it’s one of the more simple aspects of their routine.

: :

Sophia’s mother was a wonderful person, charming and sweet, but ended up being the wrong person for Jesse. They dated for quite a while—Jesse lost his virginity to her, and it was around then that he realized maybe something about their relationship was off. He was frantic for a while about trying to pinpoint exactly what went wrong—what it was that he did to screw everything up, but never could figure it out. Finally, the both of them sat down and talked, and it all made sense.

Not at first, though. At first, it mostly was Jesse rambling on and on (though he doesn’t talk much, once he starts, he finds it difficult to stop, especially when he’s nervous), trying to explain what he thought it was that he did wrong. He wasn't really sure what it was, though, and it mostly ended with him being the worst person in the world and saying, feeling horrible, "It's just—it's not you, it's me, you know?" He realized when he finally took a moment to stop talking that Rebecca was laughing quietly to herself.

"I know," she said, and made this _face_ at Jesse, all innocent eyes and best intentions.

"What?" Jesse asked, feeling himself turning red.

"I _know_ ," she said, and laughed even harder.

She knew Jesse was gay before he did, but ultimately, that was okay. She didn't seem upset, and insisted that they remain friends, and funnily, Jesse could sense the sincerity in the statement. He agreed and for a short while they parted ways. They would email now and again—awkward smalltalk that evolved back into friendly conversations that flowed smoothly. And one day, there was a knock on Jesse's door, and Rebecca was outside, biting her lip and staring at Jesse with big eyes that were starting to water. She looked like she was doing everything in her power not to cry. Jesse had never, _ever_ seen her cry before, so he knew it was serious. He frowned, but let her in and sat her on the couch. He made her tea—green tea, her favorite, and then she _did_ start to cry.

"I can't drink that," she said quietly, staring at her feet.

"What do you mean? You drink it all the time."

"It has _caffeine_. I can't—I can't drink caffeine."

"Why not?" Jesse asked. (Looking back, he realizes now how stupid the question was. Twenty-twenty hindsight, he always thinks, and tries to let it go.)

Rebecca rolled her eyes, wiping them before crying even harder. "I'm _pregnant_ ," she said, almost incredulously. Suddenly, it made sense.

Jesse apologized probably a hundred times that evening. He's no longer sure whether it was because of the tea, or because of impregnating her to begin with, but all he could say was, _I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry_. Rebecca was never mad at him to begin with, not even a little. She spent the night at Jesse's, and the next day, they both felt a little more composed.

They talked for hours about every detail of their futures, covering the _ifs_ and _buts_ and eventually coming to a mutual agreement. They would have the baby, and they would both raise it, more than likely taking turns. There was no reason to deprive the child of having both parents—that would just be cruel, they agreed. They also agreed that a better plan would possibly arise, but until then, it was decided. So they bought cribs and clothes and diapers, and they went to doctor's appointments and lamaze and all of that, and eventually, fewer than nine months later, Rebecca had Sophia.

Their plan went fine for the first year. Both of them were extremely happy—they both loved Sophia ridiculously. But then, on one of Jesse's days with Sophia, Rebecca never showed up with her. He called her phone, but there was no answer. An hour later, Rebecca’s mother called, sounding frantic, saying that she was at the hospital and that something happened to Rebecca. She didn’t say anything else. Jesse immediately rushed over. After he arrived, all Rebecca’s mom could say was, “She’s gone, Jesse. She’s _gone_.”

Jesse learned the next day that it had been a drunk driver that killed her. He was ready to hate the world, everything in it, because Rebecca had been the best friend he'd had, and the best mother, but he realized he still had Sophia, who he loved. She didn’t deserve to have a dad that hated everything, so he decided not to hate the world. He took the baby back to his house and promised that, though Rebecca was gone, he would be the best parent he could be. Now and again, he wonders to himself whether or not he lives up to the promise, but most of the time he likes to think that Rebecca would be proud.

: :

Three years after that night and Sophia is a happy, wonderful four-year-old that goes to school and reads stories and pets their cats. But she also, like any four-year, likes to get into a fair amount of trouble, like the evening when Jesse comes back into the living room after making dinner and sees glitter _everywhere_. Sophia herself is coated in it—it’s all stuck to her face and her clothes and her hair is shimmering. When she looks up at Jesse, even more glitter sprinkles onto her face. Then, _then_ he sees the rest of the room, the glitter in the carpet, the glitter on George, who’s sitting next to Sophia and betraying Jesse by not stopping this situation. He’s also completely covered in a bright red glitter that contrasts horribly against his orange fur.

“Sophia May,” Jesse starts, using the most authoritative tone he can muster up. “I want you to tell me _right now_ what happened here.” There’s a piece of paper in front of Sophia and a bottle of glue, so Jesse already has a pretty solid idea of what happened, but he crosses his arms and waits patiently for Sophia’s explanation anyway.

“Well,” she says, and looks down at the mess she made. “I just wanted to make a drawing with the glitter, but then...it spilled.”

“It spilled,” Jesse repeats, and wonders to himself how a bottle of glitter spills on the floor and ends up on the couch across the room. “What did I tell you about using glitter?”

Sophia furrows her eyebrows like it’s finally sinking in that she’s in trouble. “You said not to use it without asking you first.”

“And where do we use glitter?”

“At the table, with newspaper.” Jesse nods—at least she remembers, right? She looks upset now (she hates getting in trouble), and says, “George wanted a drawing and he likes glitter. I’m sorry, Daddy!”

Jesse sighs, trying hard to steady himself and remember that just because she gives him those _eyes_ doesn't mean she's allowed to get away with what she did. He frowns again and states, "You're going to help me clean this up, okay? Then you're getting a bath. And the next time we use glitter, we use it at the table."

"With newspaper," Sophia adds, and Jesse nods in approval.

"All right," he says, "let's get to work."

: :

The next day is another horribly frenzied morning that leaves Jesse out of breath as he’s trying frantically to get the both of them out the door on time. Sophia already has her jacket and glasses on and Jesse quickly pulls her hair into a messy ponytail. He grabs her lunchbox and they run to the car before he hands it to her, and gets her into her car seat. He rushes to the driver’s seat and goes five miles over the speed limit the entire way there. It’s worrisome for him ( _“I’m gonna get pulled over, I’m gonna get pulled over,”_ he mutters to himself the entire way there), but finally, they arrive at the preschool. He gets Sophia inside, tells her goodbye, and waves in her general direction on his way out.

After school he picks her up, and Sophia rambles on and on about her day before mentioning in passing, “And I didn’t have any lunch but Mr. Andrew gave me some food and then I went outside and played house with Maggie and we—”

“You didn’t have lunch?” Jesse interrupts. “What do you mean?”

“There was nothing in my lunchbox,” Sophia says. Jesse sees her shrug in the rearview mirror like it’s no big deal. “You forgot again.”

“I forgot again,” Jesse says, and thinks back to the morning and remembers doing everything except packing a lunch. “Oh man, Soph, sweetie, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Sophia says. “I already told you, Mr. Andrew had food that he gave me.”

It makes Jesse feel a little better, but that feeling promptly disappears when he gets home and has Sophia pick up her lunchbox from the floor. He opens it up, part of him still hoping that maybe she was lying (which she never does), or that she just didn’t see the Tupperware in it (he knows that’s unlikely), and sure enough, the lunchbox is empty, save for a little post-it note stuck to the bottom. Jesse takes it out and reads it. It says:

_Mr. Eisenberg: Sophia came into school without a lunch today. Normally it’s okay because we have a refrigerator and a small supply of food for moments like these, but this isn’t the first time it’s happened with her. Maybe you could put some kind of reminder up on your fridge, or something? That said, Sophia is otherwise doing very great here. Hopefully I’ll get to see you at parent-teacher conferences! Thanks, Andrew Garfield. :)_

The handwriting is ridiculously tiny (yet still miraculously neat), because Mr. Andrew apparently decided to cram the entire note onto one side of the post-it instead of going to the backside. Jesse feels like an idiot. He figures Mr. Andrew probably thinks he’s the stupidest, worst dad ever for not even being able to provide Sophia with three solid meals a day. Even so, he takes the post-it and sticks it onto the refrigerator and decides then to start packing her lunches the night before.

: :

Sophia has always had a lot of ambition for her age, always committing to what she does. She decided when she was three that she wanted to be a scientist, and even now still goes outside with the bug-catching kit she got for Christmas last year and spends hours searching for bugs and watching them under her magnifying glass. She loves going to the local pond and feeding the ducks (“The pretty ones are the boys! They’re _mallards_ , right, Daddy? The girls are pretty too but green is—well, it’s my favorite color so I think the boy ducks are the prettiest.” Jesse thought it was cute until realizing that she was already calling boys pretty and suddenly he wanted to hit pause and so that she would only use the term “pretty” with boy _ducks_ forever, and not human boys. He’s getting better about letting her grow up, but that’s mostly because he tries not to think about it.)

A lot of the time she brings home from school drawings of animals and leaves in the autumn and once she brought home a drawing of the Earth that she had titled _global warming_. Jesse still wonders where she heard the term from, but he left it on the fridge for a long time, feeling proud (and slightly disconcerted) that she could even recognize the term to begin with.

He’s thinking, given her love for animals above anything else, that she may end up a veterinarian, but when he asks Sophia what she wants to be, she just answers, “A scientist,” like it’s a perfectly valid answer.

: :

“We started learning about the solar system today!” Sophia exclaims excitedly one afternoon after school. “And we talked about the planets!”

“That’s great,” Jesse says, setting Sophia’s lunchbox down on the counter. “Do you have a favorite planet yet?”

“ _Pluto_ ,” Sophia says excitedly, her eyes widening. “It’s really cold there! You could probably build snowmen all year!”

Jesse frowns and says, “Pluto isn’t a planet, though, honey.”

“Mr. Andrew said it is. He said it’s the tiniest and really cold. And I said I wanted to build snowmen on Pluto and I even drew a picture!” She runs quickly over to the pile of papers Jesse had taken from her cubby when he picked her up. She tosses all the papers that aren’t her drawing on the table, and after a minute pulls one out and exclaims, “Look!”

Jesse takes the paper and he sees a tiny purple circle that he can only assume is Pluto, because on top of it is an enormous blue snowman that’s smiling. “Very nice,” he says, “but Pluto isn’t a planet. It used to be, but it isn’t anymore.”

He knows it might sound a little harsh to be arguing with his child like this but she deserves to know the truth. He never said it was fair that Pluto isn’t a planet. He wishes it were, but he thinks it’s weird that people can’t come to terms with the fact that it isn’t. Also, he’s a little upset that she was taught the wrong thing in preschool. He reminds himself to ask her teacher about it. 

“Why isn’t it a planet anymore?” Sophia asks, and Jesse starts into a long story about how scientists decide what are and aren't planets.

: :

One of the papers in the stack is a form that states at the top in big letters and a wacky font, _PARENT-TEACHER CONFERENCES_. The rest of the paper is written in a normal font that explains all the typical conference stuff. It’s not mandatory but is highly encouraged, signups are on a sheet of paper on the classroom door, first-come, first-served, and so on. Jesse mostly skims over it and figures he’ll sign up early and ask about Pluto and all of that. He’s not stressed about it (which is funny since he usually stresses about everything), and sets the sheet on the stand next to the front door so that he won’t forget about it.

Sophia asks him about it when she sees it, making him help her read out the words at the top. He summarizes to her what a parent-teacher conference is and she gets very excited and states loudly, “You get to meet Mr. Andrew!”

“I know,” Jesse says, and laughs. “He _is_ your teacher, isn’t he?”

“Yes!” she shouts. “He’s really funny and you should have him show you our job chart. This week I get to feed the fish!” She pauses for a minute, but before Jesse can go to reply her eyes widen and she asks, “Can I go with? Please, please, please, _please_?”

“No, Soph,” Jesse says right away. “You’re not a parent or a teacher, are you?”

“I’m Kitty’s Mommy,” she states right away, sounding almost offended that Jesse didn’t recognize the fact. Kitty is the stuffed giraffe that she’s had since she was a baby. It’s no longer in perfect condition—Rebecca’s mom has had to sew its button eyes back on twice now, and it’s very raggedy in general, but Sophia clings to it still and insists she’s its Mommy.

“Kitty doesn’t count, I’m afraid,” Jesse says. “Kitty isn’t enrolled at the preschool, which means you’re not allowed to go to the conference.” Sophia looks a little dejected, so Jesse says, “But I will be sure to look at the job chart and anything else you need me to see. And then I’ll tell you everything Mr. Andrew tells me. But you can’t tell him I told you that. Okay?”

“Okay,” Sophia says and squeals with excitement. “I won’t!”

Sophia adores Mr. Andrew, one of the two teachers working at the preschool. He was a replacement for Sophia’s old teacher, a nice woman who quit after having a child of her own. Jesse only has spoken with Mr. Andrew once, and he seemed pretty nice. Jesse figures it’s good that he’s going to actually be able to sit down and talk to him—he feels like it’s weird not to have done so with the person that’s teaching his daughter how to write and color and play with other kids. Since Sophia adores him, he figures it’s okay that he hasn’t yet, but decides after talking with her to make it one of his higher priorities.

: :

Jesse and Sophia get to school the next day without any need to hurry, which is a pleasant change of pace. While they were getting ready, Sophia seemed to rush a little, bouncing and saying, “Come _on_ , we’re gonna be late.” Jesse isn’t sure if she said so because he’s made her horribly accustomed to rushing or because she’s excited for him to sign up for conferences. Because they get to school and she does everything in her power to literally drag him over to the signups. He rolls with it and staggers over toward the paper and she grabs him a pink marker from the marker bin and says, “Do it quick!” He stares at the marker and laughs, but scribbles his name down for the third conference slot on the list.

“Okay?” he asks Sophia. She beams.

“Yes! See you after school!”

“Sounds like a plan,” Jesse says, and laughs on his way out.

: :

The third conference slot on the list happens to be two days later, as he realizes the next day when he actually thinks to check what time he signed up for. He doesn’t change it, because there’s no issue with it, but he does have to make sure to remember to stay late the next day.

So, he gets into school the day of the conference and realizes then that he has no one to watch Sophia. It’s four when his conference starts, and all of the other kids already have gone home. He doesn’t have to worry though, because the other teacher at the preschool, Ms. Emma, greets him at the door and says with a wide smile, “I’ll be keeping Sophia company while you’re in your conference, Mr. Eisenberg. Andrew is in the other classroom, through that door over there.” She points to the door at the other side of the classroom and smiles wider.

“Okay,” Jesse says. “Awesome. Thanks.”

“No problem!” Ms. Emma says, and directs her attention right to Sophia as soon as Jesse walks away. Jesse makes his way through the first classroom and through the door to the second room. Inside it are lots of children-sized tables, and a conveniently set up larger table on the circle rug with two grownup-sized chairs on either side. Sitting in one of the chairs is Mr. Andrew, flipping through a manila file folder before realizing Jesse has walked in. He perks up, sets the folder down, and grins.

“Hi there, Mr. Eisenberg!” he says right away. Jesse walks over and sits down and suddenly feels like the most oblivious person alive. He definitely did not realize before that Sophia’s new preschool teacher has a British accent.

“Um. Hi,” Jesse finally says. Mr. Andrew smiles more. His teeth are ridiculously bright, Jesse realizes, and he seems to radiate sincerity without even doing anything. “It’s nice to, well, to meet you, I guess.”

“Very,” Mr. Andrew replies. “I always see you coming in and out but one of us has always been a little preoccupied. So, hello! I’m Andrew, Sophia’s teacher.” He extends a hand to Jesse. “A proper introduction,” he adds, and gives Jesse a relaxed shrug.

Jesse quickly shakes Andrew’s hand and says, “I’m Jesse. Proper introductions are good.”

Andrew goes on to talk for a few minutes about the basic structure of the school’s curriculum and Jesse doesn’t pay very much attention to what he’s saying, rather focusing instead on his accent which is so weird and British but _not quite_ and he spends a few moments wondering to himself what part of Britain he might be from. Suddenly Andrew is asking him if he has any questions so far and Jesse nearly jumps.

“Well, sort of,” he says, and quickly wonders if he should just shut up. Andrew raises an eyebrow curiously though and Jesse figures there’s no turning back, so he continues, “So, Sophia thinks Pluto is a planet. Did you tell her it's a planet? Because it’s not. Anymore.”

“I suppose I did tell her it is, yes,” Andrew says with a laugh. “We’ve started the solar system unit, as you’ve probably noticed—Sophia is really, very into it. It’s amazing how intelligent she is. Anyway, I did tell them Pluto is a planet, because it’s such a recent change and there are still so many cases being brought up arguing that it _is_ in fact a planet. Obviously this is quite a bit of information to teach a group of three-to-four-year-olds, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt anything to say it was.”

“I—oh,” Jesse says, and feels incredibly stupid all of a sudden. “Yeah, I—that makes sense.”

“Of course, Sophia came in the next day and asked me about it—she mentioned dwarf planets and I figured she’d talked to you. But I did confirm that Pluto isn’t _quite_ a planet because it’s so small. She says she’d still like to build snowmen on it, though. Fair enough, I figured.”

“Absolutely,” Jesse says. “She’s moved on from bug catching to trying to find Pluto in the sky at night.” Which is sort of adorable, Jesse has to admit, but also frustrating when she barely gets to see a dark sky before heading to bed. She’s stayed up “Just a little late, Daddy!” too many nights now for Jesse’s liking.

“That’s great!” Andrew tells Jesse. “She’s so smart. Here, let me show you her current file.”

Andrew goes on to show Jesse all the papers documenting Sophia’s progress at the preschool. It’s interesting to see the way her letters are getting better (her S’s now face the proper direction, which is a very solid improvement), the way she’s learning to color in the lines and how her humans look a lot less blob-like and a lot more like actual people. Every now and again, Jesse can hear Sophia’s laughter coming from the other room. Often, Jesse will look up at Andrew and there isn’t a moment where he doesn’t look absolutely ecstatic. Jesse is almost _glad_ Sophia’s old teacher left, because Andrew seems so happy to work at the preschool.

This also makes Jesse feel like a jerk for even mentioning Pluto. He wants to say, “Hey, sorry for being _that_ parent, you know, the one that argues the most minute detail in your lesson plan,” but the moment has long passed, and Andrew doesn’t seem to have much cared anyway. 

As the meeting is winding down, Jesse finally does apologize, saying, “Sorry about the Pluto thing, by the way. I don’t, like—I don’t want you to think I’m trying to criticize you. I just. I don’t know. I just—”

“Hey,” Andrew interrupts. “It’s not a problem. I’m glad to see that Sophia is getting the opportunity to pick up on these things. And it’s great to see that you want to make sure that she’s receiving the best education possible here!”

Jesse just feels worse after this, like he was an idiot for questioning Andrew to begin with. “Ah, well, yeah. She gets it from me—I don’t know if that’s a good thing, but—”

“Of course it is,” Andrew interrupts again.

“Yeah. Um. Thank you. Okay, I probably should get going. Thanks again.”

“Thank _you_ for coming.”

“You’re welcome,” Jesse says, and wants to slap himself. That was probably the worst thing he could have said. “Okay, bye,” he adds, and tries not to run too quickly out the door.

: :

Sophia goes on the entire night interviewing Jesse on his conference. What did Mr. Andrew say? Isn’t he silly? Did you see the job chart? And did he show you the drawing I made with the elephant? He said he wanted to keep it because it was so good!

Jesse provides the proper responses to all of Sophia’s questions and, once she goes to bed, spends the rest of his evening wondering why he still feels like the most ridiculous person on the planet. He eventually gets to bed and tries to let it go.

: :

Thankfully, Jesse doesn't have a lot of time to over-analyze what probably was a simple conversation. Because in a cruel twist of fate two days later, Fred, one of their cats, apparently eats a mouse that had been poisoned with rat poison. Jesse does everything in his power to get him to the vet in time, but it ends up being too late and he passes away. Though he’s upset, Jesse spends a lot of time feeling stupid for naming Fred after a Harry Potter character that inevitably dies.

He gets over the fact soon enough, but feels like the worst person on the planet because Sophia is utterly distraught over the loss. She cries for several hours once Jesse sits her down and tells her that Fred isn’t coming back (“But _why_ , Daddy? He was—he was just here.”) It turns into the kind of conversation that no parent ever wants to face, but Jesse does it as bravely and logically as he can.

Jesse can tell that Sophia seems to understand it enough once the questions stop coming constantly and, after a day or two, end altogether. For a week or so though, she clings to George whenever she’s home, carrying him to the dinner table, keeping him in the bathroom when she has her baths, and making sure he sleeps on her bed every night. Jesse has done enough research to know that this is completely normal. He also knows that it’s normal that she consistently brings home drawings of orange cats. (Sometimes it’s Fred and sometimes it’s George. Sometimes she insists it’s neither, but it all depends.)

One afternoon, after about a week has passed, Jesse’s picking Sophia up when Andrew pulls him to the side. “Um, hi there, Mr. Garfield,” Jesse says, not sure how formal he’s supposed to be anymore.

“Andrew, please,” is Andrew’s response, and _of course_ , Jesse thinks. He’s not sure how he could’ve known his preference, but feels stupid for not knowing it, anyway. “I was just hoping to talk to you for a minute about Sophia, if that’s okay?”

“Of course it is,” Jesse replies, and quickly bends down to ask Sophia if she doesn’t mind playing for a few more minutes. She seems happy to, mentioning something about finishing a game with one of her friends, and runs off. Jesse stands back up and looks up at Andrew, who appears to be waiting patiently.

“This may not be my place to interfere, but I’ve noticed that Sophia has been behaving somewhat differently recently. She mentioned once something about Fred dying?”

“Oh,” Jesse says, “yeah. One of our cats recently passed away.”

“That would certainly explain all the recent cat drawings,” Andrew says, and gives Jesse a sympathetic sort of smile.

“Yeah. It’s been her first real experience with death, except for her mother, but she was too young to remember that. So this has hit her sort of hard. We’ve been working on it.”

“It seems like you’ve been doing a very good job with it. I just wanted to tell you that. It also helps to know exactly who passed away. I’ll try to help work on it here, too.”

“Thanks,” Jesse says, and puts his hands in his pockets.

“It’s no problem.” There’s a short pause. Andrew looks like he’s contemplating saying something. Finally, he says, “You know, they say after a family pet passes away that it helps to wait to replace them, but I almost feel like in Sophia’s case, it would help to introduce a new pet. This is—please, tell me if you think I should stop talking—because you may not like the idea, which is fine. But she really loves animals and I’m sure you’ve seen all the studies about the benefits of pets.”

“We still have another cat,” Jesse says. “George.”

“Fred and George? Like from Harry Potter?” Andrew asks, and suddenly looks like he’s trying to suppress a giggle.

“Exactly,” Jesse says, and can’t help but laugh a little himself. “Bright orange brothers. They were really mischievous as kittens. It seemed fitting.” Andrew does laugh after Jesse says that, and it’s so genuine and it just makes Jesse want to _smile_.

“That’s great,” Andrew says. His laughter dies down and he continues, “Anyway, a new pet obviously was just an idea, and with you having George still, I suppose you could forget I said anything.”

“No, no,” Jesse replies. “I was thinking about the same thing on and off. I may wait a while, but something tells me getting a new one would be the right thing to do. I normally have at least four cats. It was weird enough having two, but just one seems wrong.”

“Four?” Andrew asks.

“Yeah. I gave away two of them to friends once Sophia was born. They were a little too territorial. I didn’t trust them. Too scheming, you know?” Jesse shrugs and Andrew laughs.

“Oh my,” he says. “Well, I’ll leave it up to you, but I just wanted to see what was up and throw in my two cents. Sorry to hold you up, but thank you!”

“What? No, thank you,” Jesse says, and shakes his head a few times, no longer sure if he’s being logical. “I’m going to go try and pry Sophia away from the blocks, but yeah, I appreciate it.” Jesse excuses himself and heads over to where Sophia is. It takes a minute to convince her that the blocks will still be there tomorrow, but finally she gets up, and the both of them say bye to Andrew on their way out.

: :

After his conversation with Andrew, Jesse spends an alarming amount of time thinking about him and the two times they’ve spoken. He’s not entirely sure why (he tries to avoid pinpointing the exact reason, truthfully), and as often as he can, he attempts to push the thoughts away. But no matter how much he tries, he always manages to wonder dumb things about Andrew—like what hair products he uses to get his hair so effortlessly poofy or what toothpaste he uses to get his teeth so white. Or does he use white strips? Maybe he gets them professionally whitened?

This goes on for about a month. During this time, Sophia seems to completely recover from what happened to Fred. Her preschool starts its weather unit, which she takes a lot of interest in. Jesse had just bought her a packet of glow-in-the-dark planets for her room that she immediately makes him put on her ceiling. She draws a picture of a sun that she tapes up on her wall, and explains to Jesse that the ceiling is nighttime and the wall is daytime. Jesse considers explaining to her that technically the sun still belongs on the ceiling, but decides against it, and compliments her room design instead.

One day, Jesse buys an abridged version of Don Quixote that he ends up reading to Sophia every night. It still should be way too difficult for her, and yet she becomes completely enraptured by the book anyway. She asks tons of questions about it until she has a pretty solid understanding of the plot. One day at school she draws what she insists is a giant windmill. Jesse puts the drawing on the fridge feeling proud.

After school one afternoon, Jesse lets Sophia play outside for a bit, because it’s finally nice out after several weeks of on and off rain. She absolutely adores getting to see the sun again. Jesse plays with her a little, but mostly watches as she runs around and investigates, looking for earthworms, mostly. She spends a little bit of time talking about the weather, and how it’s hotter because the sun is out, and eventually, she hides behind a bush. Jesse assumes right away that she’s found a bug, or something, but five and then ten minutes pass, and she’s still completely captivated by whatever is behind it. Instinctively, Jesse knows something is up and walks over to the bush to see what Sophia is doing.

“Hey, Soph,” he starts, but Sophia turns around and glares at him.

She exclaims ironically loudly, “ _Shhhhhhhhh_! He’s _sleeping_.”

“Who’s sleeping?” Jesse asks.

“Sancho Panza,” Sophia says, and moves over a little so Jesse can see what it is she’s talking about. It’s not really an _it_ , as much as a _who_ —a tiny gray kitten curled up in a ball under the bush. Its missing the tip of its ear and its fur is kind of patchy. It looks innocent as can be, but Jesse still instinctively freaks.

“Sophia, do _not_ touch him,” he says, and guides her away from him.

“Daddy, don’t worry, he’s really nice. He licked my finger and everything.”

“He _licked_ you?” Jesse asks incredulously.

“Yeah!” Sophia says, and giggles. “It was all scratchy, like when George licks me.”

Jesse’s not really sure how to make his point of, _but what if it’s rabid or diseased or has fleas?_ but he attempts anyway and says, “I know he looks cute, but sometimes cats that don’t live in houses can get sick and then make us sick, too.”

“But—” Sophia starts, but stops when she sees Jesse shake his head.

“If something like this happens again—if you see a kitten or any animal outside, you need to ask me first before petting it. Now stand up and come with me.” Sophia obliges very reluctantly. Jesse has fostered several cats and has dealt with strays before, and does his best to follow basic procedures. He makes sure its mother isn’t nearby, because if she were, that would be asking for trouble. She isn’t, so then, despite himself, he picks the kitten up very carefully.

“ _See_?” Sophia asks when it doesn’t immediately attack. “I told you he’s nice.”

“Better safe than sorry,” Jesse says. They walk up to their apartment slowly. The kitten wakes up a little, which makes him jump, but it just moves a little in his arm and starts to purr. Jesse wishes it would stop, because the last thing he needs is a cute cat earning his affection, but it doesn’t stop, so all he does is quietly sigh and pet it once or twice.

Once they get inside, he finds a box and inside of it he puts a few blankets and a warm water bottle wrapped in a towel. He sets the kitten inside and then corrals George into Sophia’s room (he’s become suddenly territorial and hissed enough times to make Jesse want to err on the side of caution). Sophia is providing Jesse a steady stream of questions ranging from “What’s the water bottle for?” to “How old is he?” to “Can we keep him? Can we? _Can we_?”

Jesse does the best he can to provide decent answers (the answer to her last question being “maybe,” which leaves Sophia thrilled), and he works on giving the kitten food. He spends another half an hour explaining to Sophia that she’s not allowed to play with the kitten until the next day, after Jesse takes it to the veterinarian while she’s at school, to make sure it’s healthy.

“Like a checkup?” Sophia asks.

“Exactly like a checkup,” Jesse says. Sophia still looks a little disappointed that she’s not allowed to play with him. “Why don’t you go keep George company?” Jesse suggests. “You don’t want him to think you forgot about him, do you?”

“Well, no...,” Sophia says. “But...I want to play with Sancho, too. What if he thinks I forgot about him?”

“You’ll be able to see him plenty. Right now let’s give George some attention. Then you’re getting a bath and getting set for bed.”

“Can we read more Don Quixote tonight?” Sophia asks, and Jesse nods. “The part with the windmill?”

“Again?” Jesse says, because they’ve reread that part probably three times. Sophia nods eagerly, so he can’t help but laugh and say, “Okay, sure.”

: :

The next day, after dropping Sophia off at school and getting some work done at home, Jesse finally gets the stray kitten into his cat carrier which is absolutely gigantic for such a little cat. Jesse figures it’s for the better—extra space and all—but makes sure to be extra careful driving so that the kitten doesn’t go flying to the opposite side of the carrier every time he turns.

He gets to the vet’s office and waits for probably, like, twelve hours. He sort of worries to himself because he has this sudden enormous fear that they won’t let him keep the kitten. He doesn’t know if he’s worried because he’s afraid of Sophia’s potential disappointment, or because of his own. Kittens are endearing, okay? He’s relieved once he’s finally called back. 

Then the vet rambles a lot but says that the kitten looks mostly healthy. The patchy fur is probably just some allergic reaction to something outside. He insists on further testing for the diseases that “can’t be seen,” prescribes an antibiotic for its ear “just in case,” prescribes something else for its fur, give it its shots, and insists on scheduling to have it neutered. 

He never says that Jesse can’t keep the kitten. Jesse asks, just to be sure, “Can we keep him? I have a four-year-old daughter, and I don’t want her to get sick and die from anything he might have, but I also don’t want to let her down and have her hate me forever.”

The vet insists that Jesse can rest easy knowing Sophia isn’t going to die or suddenly turn against him. Anything that the kitten might have won’t spread to humans. He’s completely safe to be around and, even better, Jesse is allowed to bring the kitten back home the same day. When Sophia sees it curled up on her bed when she gets home from school, she starts jumping up and down and thanking Jesse profusely. She plays with him the entire evening and helps get his food ready and she decorates the box that has inadvertently become his new bed.

In the following days, Sancho really does prove to be like the Don Quixote character, loyally following Sophia everywhere she goes. Unlike George, who thinks it’s funny or something when she gets into trouble, Sancho will meow loudly which Jesse finds to be a nice quality. And thankfully, Sancho Panza doesn’t die at the end of Don Quixote, so Jesse likes to think he’ll live a long and healthy life as Sophia’s sidekick.

After the kitten escapades, Jesse is unfortunately given enough free time to revert back to thinking about Andrew. It’s horrible, because every time Jesse sees him at the preschool, being so British and friendly, all he can think about is how he is so perfect. Jesse has enough trouble balancing everything in his life—making sure his daughter gets fed and to school on time and stops making large glittery messes in the living room—let alone dealing with twenty preschoolers while still being ridiculously charming and keeping himself together in a nonchalant kind of way. The word _crush_ flickers into Jesse’s head a couple of times, but he tries to ignore it, because that can’t possibly be what’s causing this.

Except now and again he wishes Rebecca were around to help him figure his life out, which means it has to be serious, and then he just wants to punish himself for being so incompetent around Andrew and for not knowing what to do. Having Sophia helps tremendously because she distracts him from his ridiculous thoughts, but she also led him to Andrew to begin with. It leaves Jesse feeling conflicted. 

It all is worsened when he gets to a meeting one afternoon that ends up running late. He normally picks Sophia up at three, but the meeting barely gets out at three, at which point Jesse is sprinting to his car to try to make it there as early as possible. Unfortunately, he gets stuck in traffic, the inevitable rush-hour madness that he was trying hard to avoid. Despite his strict anti-phone policy he enforces with himself while driving, Jesse goes to reach for his phone so he can call the preschool and warn them that he’s going to be late. Only his phone isn’t in his pocket. Or anywhere in the car, apparently, because he had put it in his jacket pocket, only to decide he wasn’t going to need his jacket.

“Of course,” he says to himself. He’s ready to start pounding his head against the steering wheel. Sophia faced a lot of separation anxiety when she first started school, the same way Jesse had when he was her age, and she’s never liked not knowing where he is. As long as there’s a routine, it’s okay, but when changes pop up there’s this idea in her mind that, because Jesse doesn’t know exactly when he’ll get back, he’ll apparently _never_ be back, and it freaks her out.

There’s no stopping the traffic, though, so Jesse does his best to stay calm through it, and not be the person that honks at miles of cars that are probably just as anxious to get somewhere as he is. 

He gets to the preschool nearly two hours later, long after all the other kids have gone home, and feels horrible for it. He heads inside and through the classroom door and sees, on the circle rug, Sophia and Andrew. Sophia is sitting in Andrew’s lap, sniffling loudly, the same way she always does when she’s finally done crying. Andrew is reading a book to her— _Corduroy_ , Jesse sees as he gets closer. His voice is soft and gentle and he does the voices the right way and lets Sophia turn the pages. Jesse feels rude to interrupt, so he waits patiently at the door until Sophia must see him out of the corner of her eye. 

She leaps up and exclaims, “Daddy!” as loud as she can, and runs up to him, hugging him tightly, as though she were surprised to see he made it back at all. Jesse picks her up and squeezes her tight and apologizes probably a hundred times. Sophia says it’s okay, but Jesse kind of questions whether or not it was two hours ago. He sets her back down when Andrew stands up, puts the book back on the shelf, and walks over toward the both of them.

“I’m so sorry,” Jesse says, and crosses his arms tightly. “I feel horrible. It was a meeting that ran late and there was an accident on the freeway and once you mix that with the regular rush-hour traffic, you’ve got a pure one-mile-per-hour nightmare.”

“Don’t worry,” Andrew says. “I understand completely. It happens, you know? Not your fault.”

“I know, but Sophia, I just...was she okay?”

“A little distraught,” Andrew says, laughing. “But Emma stayed a little late herself to provide some help which—well, helped. Sophia calmed down eventually and I mostly just kept her company. I tried to call, but—”

“I forgot my phone,” Jesse says quickly. “I was sort of an idiot. I’m a horrible parent, I am so sorry.”

“What?” Andrew asks. “No, you’re not. Not at all. Sophia adores you and I explained to her that you were probably caught in traffic and that you must have forgotten your phone and, okay, she was a little skeptical, but see? You’re here and she’s okay and undoubtedly still adores you and you’re not, by any means, a horrible parent.” Jesse just kind laughs awkwardly and Andrew smiles and adds, “I mean it. Anyway, when I pulled out Sophia’s file to get your phone number, I couldn’t help but notice that you live in the apartment complex on Elm Street. I live one block over myself, on Washington, and I just wanted to let you know that, if you ever need a babysitter or anything, I would be happy to help out.”

“Oh,” Jesse says. He sort of wants to stammer, because he never would’ve guessed that Andrew lives so close. 

“I mean—you don’t have to say yes. I just thought I would throw the offer out there.”

“No, yeah, thank you,” Jesse replies, and fiddles awkwardly with his shirt sleeve. “Sophia doesn’t handle babysitters very well, so it might, you know, help that she already knows the person. I don’t really—I haven’t needed a sitter recently, but if I do, I’ll definitely ask you. Are you sure you don’t mind?”

Andrew laughs and says, “If I minded, I certainly would not be offering. I would be very happy to, in fact. Sophia is lovely and incredibly well-behaved.”

“I’m taking it you haven’t seen her once she’s discovered where the glitter is kept,” Jesse says, and the both of them laugh. 

“I suppose not!”

From next to Jesse, Sophia yawns and Jesse says, “Okay, well, I think she’s worn herself out. I should probably get home and fix her dinner and let her get to bed early.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” Andrew replies, nodding in approval. “I’ll see you both tomorrow!”

“See you then,” Jesse says, and Sophia waves tiredly at Andrew before the both of them make their departure.

: :

It’s scary, really, _very_ scary what happens after Jesse discovers that Andrew lives only one block over. Suddenly, it’s as though Andrew is _everywhere_. Jesse wonders if he’s subconsciously going near the block he lives on or if Andrew is just stalking him. He sees Andrew at the store one afternoon while he’s out with Sophia buying the necessary ingredients to make (or attempt to make) chocolate chip cookies and Andrew _talks_ to him, saying effortlessly, “Fancy seeing you here, Mr. Eisenberg.”

Jesse just about cringes when he hears that and states, “Jesse. If I’m going to call you Andrew, you’ve got to call me Jesse.”

“Fair enough,” Andrew says. 

Before either of them can say anything else, Sophia, from next to Jesse, starts jumping up and down and exclaiming, “Mr. Andrew! Mr. Andrew! Guess what me and Daddy are going to make!”

Andrew says, “Sophia! Sophia! Hmm, let’s see,” and looks down at their basket. He furrows his eyebrows and says, “I see chocolate chips and flour and sugar and...batteries?”

“For the smoke detector,” Jesse states. “So that I know when that I’ve inevitably burned the coo-”

“Don’t tell him!” Sophia interrupts loudly. “He has to guess.” She looks up at Andrew expectantly.

“Well,” he tells her. “My best guess would be that you’re making chocolate chip cookies.”

“Yes!” Sophia shouts. “Yes, yes!” Jesse has to quickly remind her that they’re in a grocery store, which means they have to use inside voices, and quickly she whispers to Jesse, “ _He was right!_ ” Andrew is watching the both of them with an amused look on his face.

“You’re going to have to save me one,” he says. “I love chocolate chip cookies.”

“We’ll save you one! Of course we will, right, Daddy?”

“Of course,” Jesse says. “Maybe, if he’s lucky, we’ll save him _two_.” Sophia lets out a delighted squeal.

Andrew laughs loudly and wishes the both of them luck before they part ways.

: :

Two days later Jesse and Sophia are walking to the park when they bump into Andrew, who’s walking his dog, a little corgi that wags eagerly and is perfectly content letting Sophia pet her probably forever. Her name is Rosie, and it’s such an _Andrew_ kind of name. 

Another day Sophia is playing outside the apartment when she finds a little duckling and spends ten minutes trying to convince Jesse that it would make the perfect pet.

“No, Sophia, honey,” Jesse tries to explain to her. “The landlord would never let us keep a duck as a pet. Ducks make messes and are very loud and ducks don’t really like cats all that much.” Sophia doesn’t really listen to any of it, though, and names the duckling Quack and tries to insist to Jesse that he would be very quiet and would get along with the cats excellently. 

Suddenly, Sophia is running the opposite direction. “Mr. Andrew! Tell Daddy that I can keep Quack.”

Jesse stands up and quickly turns around and why, _why_ is Andrew there?

It turns out, when Jesse finally asks, he has some logical excuse about walking over to the pharmacy, which is, of course, on Jesse’s block. Then, because Andrew is a preschool teacher and knows exactly what to say to kids, more than Jesse does, at least, he tells Sophia, “Your dad has a point about keeping that duckling. I’m sure he wishes he could let you keep it, but ducks are an animal meant for the great outdoors.”

“What about Sancho? I found Sancho outside and Daddy let me keep him.”

“Well,” Andrew says, “cats are exceptions. Cats, dogs, hamsters...they don’t mind houses. They like houses. Ducks need lots of water—more than you’ve got in your home. They need lots of water, and fresh air, and the food they eat is outside too.”

“Oh,” Sophia says, sounding upset.

“You still can see the ducks, though. You said you go to the lake a lot to feed them. That’s all right—great, actually. They’re just not meant for houses or apartments, is all.”

“Yeah,” Sophia says. She looks up at Jesse and asks him, “Can we go to the lake again soon to feed the ducks? Maybe Quack will be there.”

“Sure we can,” Jesse says, if it means keeping Sophia happy. “We’ll go tomorrow, how does that sound?”

“Good,” Sophia says. Andrew stays for just another minute before excusing himself. Then Sophia talks for a while about ducks and preschool and anything else she can go on about. Jesse listens and replies and pretends he isn’t thinking, even a little, about Andrew.

: :

Three days later, Sophia comes down with a miserable case of the flu. It’s March, and happens right when Jesse had just started thinking the both of them were in the clear until autumn. He obviously was wrong, and keeps Sophia home for three days until she’s back to a hundred percent. Thankfully, unlike the last few times she’s gotten sick, it’s only a little difficult managing to get to the store with her sick—he has nice neighbors that ended up helping him out. He didn’t get as much work done as he wanted with Sophia being such a high priority, but it doesn’t concern him horribly. 

What does concern him is when, a day later, he finds himself with a bad headache that leads to a cough and then a runny nose and then a fever, and he knows he got Sophia a flu vaccination but wonders whether he got one himself, and soon comes to the conclusion that, no, he didn’t. A day passes like this, and then two, and he gets no work done and just barely manages to get Sophia to and from school and make her dinner without feeling like dropping dead. Sophia is concerned, even though Jesse insists it’s exactly what she had, and he’ll be good as new in no time.

She brings him home a get-well card from school anyway. That same night, around seven, she gets ready for bed and thankfully doesn’t press for any more than one story. Jesse waits to make sure she’s not going to come creeping out like she does sometimes for more water, or to have Jesse check her bedroom for monsters. She doesn’t, so Jesse goes to the living room and, feeling absolutely dead, flops over on his couch. He’s almost asleep, so, _so_ close, when there’s a knock on his apartment door. He thinks he’s hearing things at first, in his sick, probably borderline delusional state, but after a moment there’s another knock, and he decides he might as well check. He almost falls off the couch sitting up, and has to wait a second for his head to stop feeling like it’s swimming, but finally he’s upright and walking slowly toward the door. 

He gets there and doesn’t bother checking the peephole or asking, “Who’s there?” like he sometimes does. He just opens the door and standing outside, of course, of all people, is Andrew.

“Jesse,” he says, and immediately frowns. “You look terrible.”

“Yeah,” Jesse replies, his voice hoarse and quiet. “I know.” He crosses his arms—he feels freezing cold all of a sudden—and Andrew just stands there frowning and looking concerned. Jesse notices that he’s holding a brown paper bag in his hand.

He says, “Sophia told me that you were sick and I assumed you must have gotten the flu she was kept home over, and, well, I brought you soup.” He holds up the brown bag and says, “I know it’s terribly cliché, but I figured it would be a safe bet.”

Jesse stares at the brown bag for a minute before saying, “Thank you.” It takes him another minute to put together a few coherent sentences. He says, “You can come inside, if you want. But then you might get sick. Which is a lot worse for you than me or Sophia, probably.”

“Thank you for the offer! I would love to come in, but I have to be on my way, actually. If you’re still feeling sick tomorrow, don’t hesitate to let me know. I can always drop Sophia off at home or watch her if you need a nap, or I could go to the store for you, if you need. I’m sure it can be frustrating as a single parent once one of you gets sick.”

“Yeah,” Jesse agrees. “The past few days have been a little harsh. I’ll let you know if I need any help.”

“All right. Very cool.” Andrew hands Jesse the brown bag and says, “Get well soon! Lots of rest, fluids, all of that.” Jesse nods and thanks Andrew again and waits until he’s turned around to actually shut and lock the door. He’s too exhausted to eat the soup right then, so he puts it in the fridge and heads back to his bedroom and lies down and falls asleep almost immediately.

: :

The next day is when it really sinks into him that _Andrew_ brought him _soup_ the night before. After he drops Sophia off at school, still feeling congested and miserable, he goes back to his house and tries to get some work done. He gives up and eats Andrew’s soup and it doesn’t taste at all store bought, which makes him wonder what that’s supposed to mean. Andrew made him homemade soup and brought it to his house at seven in the evening. Is that, like, a normal thing that the preschool teacher of anybody’s kid would do?

Jesse decides he’s over-analyzing the situation. He washes the container the soup came in, and makes sure to bring it to the preschool with him when he goes to pick up Sophia. He hands it to Andrew and thanks him again. Andrew insists it was no problem at all, and that he’s glad to see Jesse is feeling better. Ms. Emma is making all these faces at Andrew, raising eyebrows and giving him wide smiles, and then she starts nudging him with her elbow. Jesse has no idea what she means by all that, and Andrew doesn’t appear to either, because he looks at Ms. Emma and says, “What?”

“Oh,” Ms. Emma says. “Nothing. Feel better soon, Mr. Eisenberg!” 

Reluctantly, Jesse says, “Thanks,” and then he thanks Andrew again and leaves with Sophia feeling more confused than ever. 

: :

Two weeks later, Jesse is feeling back to normal again, but realizes it’s going to be a long night when Sophia tries to insist to him that the world is going to end if she doesn’t get to bring Sancho in for show-and-tell. Jesse tries to convince her that the world is absolutely not going to end. She says it totally will and he can’t help but ask if that means the absence of Sancho Panza is going to throw of the balance of everything and cause a natural disaster, or something. Sophia, clearly confused, shouts, “Probably!”

“How about you bring in a photo of him?” Jesse suggests, thinking he’s found the solution.

“No,” Sophia says, and shakes her head.

“Why not?”

“Just because...because no. Sancho wants to see my school.” Jesse takes a deep breath and wonders how he’s managed to be patient with Sophia for four years now.

“Why don’t you take photos of the school to show Sancho?”

“It’s not the same. Sancho wants to meet the fishies, anyway.” 

Jesse realizes after this that Sophia is going to find an excuse no matter what, and decides he’s going to have to be the mean parent that tells her, quite simply, “No. You can’t bring any animals into school, Soph. I’m sorry.”

Sophia throws that night probably the worst temper tantrum Jesse has seen out of her since she was two. She kicks and screams but Jesse remains calms and gives her options and waits until she calms down and says, sounding utterly miserable, “I guess I’ll just bring a photo.” She pouts the entire time they take it, but by the time it’s printed and ready to go, she seems a lot happier about it and rambles and rambles on the way to school about what she’s actually going to say once it’s her turn.

Jesse goes home and gets a little bit of work done on the computer and around the house before picking Sophia up from school. She talks the entire way home about how cute everyone thought Sancho is, and how she told them all about Don Quixote. Jesse laughs and says, “That’s great, sweetie,” and listens to her continue on about her day.

They get home and once Sophia has eaten and showered and played and is in bed, Jesse gets on the computer again and, while checking his email, sees a message from his publisher saying that there’s some important event in two days that Jesse absolutely _must_ go to and yadda yadda yadda. For a moment, Jesse gets all nervous, thinking about what he’s going to do about Sophia. Suddenly, he remembers Andrew. He debates for several minutes whether or not Andrew truly would mind watching her. But then he remembers that Andrew made him soup. That must mean he doesn’t mind, right? That’s at least the conclusion Jesse draws, because suddenly, he’s emailing Andrew:

_Andrew,_

_This is Jesse Eisenberg, Sophia’s dad. I’m hoping two days notice isn’t considered short notice, but if it is, sorry. I was just emailed about a mandatory event I have to be at on Friday starting at 7 pm, meaning I’d have to leave at 6 pm, which means Sophia needs someone to watch her from then until the earliest they let me leave (hopefully early; it always depends). I know you offered to watch her, and if you were being serious, Friday would be the perfect night. I would absolutely pay you and you could eat all our food if you wanted and buy movies On Demand and make a mess and I would still appreciate it. Just let me know. Thanks,_

_Jesse_

Jesse keeps a close eye on his phone after that, waiting for the familiar ping telling him he’s got an email. The first two pings are just spam, but finally, after a couple of hours, he hears a third ping. Quickly, he grabs his phone and reads Andrew’s response:

_Jesse, I wouldn’t mind watching Sophia at all! No need to pay me, and no rush on getting back early at all. I can be there at 6 (or earlier, if necessary) and stay as long as you need. I promise not to eat all your food or rent On Demand or make any messes._

_Andrew :)_

Jesse waits about half an hour to email back. He tells Andrew that six would be perfect. Andrew doesn’t email back, but confirms the next day, Thursday, “See you then!” And three more times before then, Jesse thinks, but doesn’t mention so.

He smiles, says, “Sounds good,” and goes to leave.

: :

Friday rolls around very quickly, something Jesse wishes wouldn’t have happened. He has to get all dressed up in a suit, and Sophia asks why he looks all fancy, and Jesse says, “I have to go out for a little bit, Soph.”

“Do I get to go with?” Sophia asks. “And wear one of my dresses?”

“No, not this time,” Jesse says. Sophia looks a little disheartened, so Jesse quickly adds, “ _But_ —do you know who’s going to be watching you?”

“No,” Sophia says. 

“None other than _Mr. Andrew_ ,” Jesse states, and Sophia’s eyes widen. 

“Really?” she asks. When Jesse nods, she jumps up and down quickly and exclaims, “That’s even better! I can show him my room and we can watch Cinderella and everything!”

Jesse nods, but walks to the living and sits down on the couch to wait for Andrew. Sophia follows and Jesse tells her, “I know you’re excited, but you have to remember to be on your best behavior for him.” Sophia nods rapidly. “That means cleaning up any messes you make, and listening to what Mr. Andrew says.”

“Like in school,” Sophia states.

“Kind of,” Jesse says. “But when he says it’s bedtime, you’re going to go to bed, okay?”

“Is he going to read a story?”

“I’ll be sure to tell him to.” There’s a knock on the door after that. Sophia looks at Jesse eagerly, and Jesse says, “I put your pajamas on your bed, Soph. Why don’t you go get them on so that I can talk to Andrew alone for a minute.”

“But—”

“Best behavior,” Jesse reminds her, and she huffs but heads toward her bedroom. Jesse looks himself up and down before wondering to himself what he’s doing. He shakes his head and opens the front door. 

Andrew smiles at Jesse, looks him up and down, and says, “Hello! You’re looking very snazzy tonight. This must be quite the event.”

“Yeah,” Jesse says. “There are always a couple each year like this that I always dread, but can never avoid. Oh well.” He lets Andrew in and continues, shutting the door as he speaks, “So, it should be a pretty calm night. I asked Sophia to try to be on her best behavior—I can only hope she listens.”

“I’m sure she will,” Andrew says, and Jesse laughs.

“We’ll see. Anyway, like I said, it shouldn’t be too bad. She normally goes to bed at 7:00, but I have a feeling she’ll be a little hyper tonight, so it’s okay if she stays up a little late—7:30 is probably a good time to have her start getting ready—just brushing her teeth and stuff. The most important thing is her bedtime story. She always picks, and if she chooses something ridiculous, like Don Quixote or Tolstoy, just roll with it. You shouldn’t have to read too much of that stuff—a few pages, you know. She’ll ask a lot of questions, but you probably already could assume that.”

“She’s always quite curious, yes,” Andrew says happily. “I’m sure it will go very smoothly.”

“I really hope,” Jesse says, rubbing the back of his neck. “She’ll probably insist on reading in my room, which is fine with me, as long as you don’t mind. It’s just…she didn’t react well with her last babysitter, so I’m really hoping it helps that she knows you so well. If she wonders when I’ll be home, just tell her that I’ll be here when she wakes up. If anything happens, my phone is on, so really, don’t hesitate to call. Like I said, you’re welcome to eat or drink whatever, and to watch TV. It really should be a calm night, I think.”

“All right,” Andrew says, and then looks at his watch. “You should probably get going, huh?”

“Probably,” Jesse admits, checking the time himself.

“Have a good time at your event! I’ll see you in a little while. Remember—no rush.”’

“Okay,” Jesse says, and then, “Thank you,” and, “See you in a bit.” He rushes out the front door and really, _really_ hopes for the best.

: :

He gets home at about 12:30 in the morning, which isn’t horrible, but is still kind of late when he was trying to leave at nine. He walks in quietly and tries not to let the door make a lot of noise behind him. He sees a pair of shoes by the front door and, when he turns around, notices Andrew sitting criss-cross on the couch. Playing on the TV is what looks like CNN, but Andrew’s already reaching for the remote and shutting it off.

“Hey there,” he says.

Jesse waves and asks, bracing himself for the worst, “How did it go?”

“Wonderfully,” Andrew replies, standing up. “We played a couple rounds of Candy Land before she started yawning and I got her to bed. We read a couple shorter stories—kid’s books, you know. I don’t think I would’ve done too well with Don Quixote or Tolstoy. She went right to sleep—didn’t come out or anything at all. It went really, very wonderfully.”

“That’s good,” Jesse says, feeling the urge to sigh in relief. He goes on to say, “I’m really, _really_ grateful for your help. Are you sure I can’t pay you at all?”

“Absolutely positive.”

“Oh,” Jesse says. “Well, I owe you somehow, okay?” 

The both of them are standing in front of the door, super close to each other, and Jesse’s palms feel sweaty and he looks like an idiot, staring at Andrew’s face as he says, “No, don’t worry about it.” He says it so nonchalantly, but there’s this genuine tone in his voice that never seems to escape him, no matter what he says. He smiles at Jesse and they just _look_ at each other for a minute. 

Without any warning at all, the both of them are getting closer and Jesse feels like he’s stuck in a cliché movie. He and Andrew are suddenly kissing. In retrospect, even right after pulling away, Jesse couldn’t say with certainty who initiated it. He never thought he would do something like that, but when Andrew certainly couldn’t have been the one to do it, it must have been him, right? He starts apologizing frantically and muttering, “No, no, no,” under his breath, and pulling the door open. 

He apologizes a few more times, and whenever Andrew goes to say something—several times—Jesse just shakes his head and nudges him out the door. Soon, Andrew gives up on trying to speak, so Jesse just says, “Sorry and thank you again for watching Sophia,” and shuts the door quickly. He says to himself, feeling miserable, “So stupid of me.”

: :

Jesse can remember thinking that what he had for Andrew might have just been a _crush_ at most. He wonders now if everyone kisses their crushes after they’re done babysitting. He kind of has his doubts. 

He truthfully spends a lot of time wondering—way too much. Wondering why he kissed Andrew and why he didn’t ask first, like, “Hey, do you want to kiss or something?” and he wonders why he shoved Andrew right out and wonders if Andrew is going to stop being so nice with Sophia because her dad is weird.

He realizes that it’s probably impossible for Andrew to be mean, and feels a little better. He stops feeling better when he’s at school, dropping off and picking up Sophia, and Andrew keeps trying to talk to him. He has to keep saying, “No, I’ve got to run,” or stop making eye contact, but the entire problem is that Andrew is so _nice_ , so much that he looks at Jesse and talks to him like the one night never even took place, and Jesse just wants to beg him to yell and scream so that they can both move on.

He doesn’t, so Jesse spends a painfully long amount of time feeling awful.

: :

The good thing about pining (or whatever it is Jesse finds himself almost constantly doing) is that it’s lessened by Sophia. He has to be with her in the mornings and evenings, and she’s great at making sure he gets the chance to laugh during the day and stop feeling so panicked. She’s always been good at cheering him up, and Jesse is grateful. 

One evening Sophia plays outside and finds herself absolutely covered, basically head to toe, in mud. Jesse tries to get angry with her, but she just smiles up at him and says, “But I got the worm!” and there’s nothing else he can do but laugh. 

“That’s good,” he says. “But it’s getting dark, so you need to let the worm go back to its home, and then you need to come inside so you can get a bath.”

Sophia knows by now that there’s no avoiding baths, especially if she gets really dirty, so she puts the worm onto the grass and follows Jesse upstairs to their apartment. He has to make her take her shoes off before they go inside—they're that dirty—and she follows him into the bathroom. 

Their apartment is practically impeccable, because Jesse does his best to clean it every day, but there are always two rooms that, no matter how much Jesse tries to clean them, will always remain dirty. The first room is Sophia’s, which always looks like a tornado has hit, because she’s always playing in there. Jesse doesn’t like cleaning her room for her, because he doesn’t want her to think that he’ll always be cleaning up after her. He helps her clean up before bed, usually, but frequently, when Sophia can’t sleep, she’ll pull out all her science tools and go exploring in her room. So, Jesse has sort of given up there.

The bathroom is easily the second room that never stays clean. It’s a little harder to explain, since Jesse cleans it almost every day. Even so, it happens too often that he trips over all of Sophia’s bath toys when he goes to shower. He always has to wonder how they got there, and he always picks them up, only to trip over them again the following day.

Sophia tries to convince Jesse that it’d be a good idea to bring Sancho and George in for her bath today to keep them company. “No,” Jesse insists. “You’ve got all of your duckies in here to keep you company.” He points at the pile of rubber ducks already sitting in the bathtub and Sophia pouts a little.

“But my duckies want to see the cats,” she says.

“They can’t, though. Cats don’t like water. They would beg to leave.”

“Aw, fine,” Sophia says. She gives Jesse a miserable look the entire time she’s getting her bath, and Jesse thinks she intentionally splashes him with water a few times. He’d gotten really good at not ending up soaking wet, and yet today he’s left so soaked that he ends up having to change shirts. 

“Funny, Sophia,” he says after he’s changed shirts. Sophia just giggles to herself, and really, Jesse can’t stay mad. He laughs himself and rolls his eyes fondly.

: :

Another day, while still not thinking about Andrew, Jesse goes to the local pharmacy. Sophia is accompanying him, asking for this and that and Jesse finally tells her, “You can get one or two little things. That’s it, though. I have the right to veto anything that’s too messy or loud or living.”

Sophia asks, “What’s veto mean?” but then goes running over toward the nail polish. He debates categorizing it as _messy_ , but figures that she hasn’t had painted nails since she was three and one of the babysitters Jesse tried out brought a few bottles over. So, he follows her to the racks and she pulls off of one of them a bright shade of pink. 

Jesse looks immediately at the price and sees that it costs ten dollars. He asks himself, “Why does nail polish cost ten dollars?” and directs Sophia over to a rack with cheaper bottles.

They’re much, much more reasonably priced, and she finds a similar shade of pink and some glitter and Jesse approves. He grabs a bottle of nail polish remover (precautionary, he thinks), and reminds Sophia that she has to wait until he finishes his shopping and they get home to actually use it.

Once they get back to their apartment and all settled down, he sits down with Sophia in their living room. He reads the nail polish bottle which gives him no instruction on what to do, other than encouraging two coats. He takes Sophia’s right hand and notices how tiny her nails are. He stares for a minute but takes a deep breath and shakes the bottle and opens it up and gives it a shot. 

It goes just a little disastrously. He gets nail polish on her nails, sure, but he also gets some on the rest of her hand (and a little on the table, and, later, he realizes there’s some on both Sancho and George). Then he has to add glitter which goes on all thinly and Sophia keeps telling him, “It needs more. That’s not enough. More please!” and he eventually has to cut her off.

“Do you want them to dry?” he asks. “Because they’re not going to if we add three hundred coats of glitter.”

She sounds resigned to the idea of stoping but admits, “Okay, I guess this is enough.”

She manages to wait a solid ten minutes before insisting that her nails must be dry. Jesse figures that must be impossible, but lets her head to her room (which would, in fact, explain the polish on Sancho and George). She comes back out an hour later complaining that she’s bored. Jesse lists off probably a thousand different ideas of what she could do, but she just shakes her head again and again.

She sees the nail polish sitting on the table and looks up at Jesse with wide eyes and asks, “Daddy, can I paint your nails?”

“ _What?_ ” Jesse asks. “No, I don’t think that would work too well. Besides, that wasn’t on my list of ideas.”

“Yeah, but Daddy, just one hand. Just one?” Jesse wonders if she knows how that would probably look more ridiculous than both. She’s so insistent though—stubborn, like her mom—and Jesse starts to second-guess himself, wondering if saying no is depriving her from artistic opportunity or something. At the very least, he has nail polish remover. So, he finally obliges and sits down (making sure to put a few paper towels on the table first), and Sophia goes to town painting his nails. They’re very, very messy, pink polish splattered just about everywhere but his actual nails. 

When Sophia finally gets to bed, Jesse goes to find the nail polish remover, only to realize he can’t find it anywhere. He searches a little frantically, and eventually comes to the conclusion that he must have left it at the pharmacy. Feeling like an idiot, he thinks about going back and getting it, but realizes that he would have to wake up Sophia to do that, and that the pharmacy is going to be closing soon anyway.

He eventually accepts the fact, and scrubs all the polish off of his skin, and plans to get nail polish remover the next day.

: :

Days have passed—probably even weeks—since Jesse completely ruined his life by kissing Andrew. He has this horrible suspicion that it’s not over yet when he goes into school to drop off Sophia and Ms. Emma confronts him by asking, “Hey, can I talk with you for a minute?”

“I guess?” Jesse says. He hasn’t really ever spoken with Ms. Emma before and it catches him off guard. 

She pulls him outside of the classroom and into the hall and says, “So, Andrew is pining and it’s getting kind of out of hand.”

“He’s pining? Who is he pining for?”

“Ohh,” Ms. Emma says disappointedly to herself. “It’s no wonder he’s been acting this way. You’re…oblivious.” 

“Oblivious? I’m so confused. Who is he pining for and why am I oblivious?” 

Ms. Emma lowers her voice to a whisper and says, “He kissed you and you freaked out. And ever since, he’s been all, ‘Oh, he must absolutely hate me!’ and has been _pining_. Even if you don’t like him, you should just let him know that you at least don’t _hate_ him. I don’t like seeing him so upset and I don’t want to have to blame you for it.” 

Jesse tries to process all the information, and finally, he manages to say, “But I kissed him. Not the other way around. He’s supposed to hate me.”

“Oh _no_ ,” Ms. Emma says. “No, no no. Okay…wow. I’ll talk to Andrew. You should go ahead and go home—and don’t worry, because I’ll take care of it.” 

Jesse goes to say, “Take care of what?” But Ms. Emma gives him this look that’s a cross between _don’t worry_ and _don’t you dare question this_. Jesse rubs a hand over his face with frustration.

“Nice nails, by the way,” Ms. Emma says, and almost sounds sincere. “Cute color.”

“Sophia, you know,” Jesse says, feeling ridiculous.

“I figured,” Ms. Emma says, and winks at Jesse before laughing and heading back inside. Jesse, feeling confused and really, _really_ ridiculous heads back home and tries to think about nothing. He can’t say he succeeds. 

: :

He goes back into the preschool about six hours later to pick Sophia up and neither Ms. Emma nor Andrew says anything to him. He figures Ms. Emma talked to Andrew and was finally corrected—she must have finally realized that she misinterpreted whatever it was that Andrew told her. It makes enough sense, and Jesse figures that, since there are only two months left in the school year, he can handle the awkward feeling that sits with him constantly until the year ends and Sophia moves on to kindergarten. All he can hope is that he doesn’t become enamored with her kindergarten teacher. He cringes at the thought.

Around eight that evening, after Sophia goes to bed and Jesse is sitting down and turning the TV on, there’s a knock on the door. Jesse frowns but stands up and goes to the door. He wonders briefly who could be at the door and then realizes it’s a stupid question since they rarely have visitors. (It’s usually Sophia’s grandma, but she’s always very good about calling ahead of time, which leaves Jesse with only one other idea in mind of who it could be.) He opens the door and isn’t surprised when it’s Andrew.

“Um, hello,” he says feebly. “Could I maybe come in? I think there’s been, um, a bit of a misunderstanding, maybe?”

“Yeah,” Jesse says. He pulls the door open all the way so Andrew comes in and adds, “Um, maybe.”

Once Andrew gets in, he goes with Jesse to the couch and has a seat. “Oh—nice nail polish,” he says before anything else and tries to refrain from giggling. “It quite suits you.”

“Ha, ha,” Jesse says, and then, “Sophia’s idea. I forgot the nail polish remover at the pharmacy.”

“No worries,” Andrew tells him. “It’s lovely.” He laughs at Jesse expense for a moment but then Jesse sort of joins in, because it is kind of funny. Abruptly, silence settles in between the two of them and Andrew waits a moment before he clears his throat and says, “So, I talked with Emma this afternoon.” 

“Oh yeah?” Jesse asks, trying not to sound too anxious. 

“Yeah. She said—well, remember the night I babysat for Sophia?” Jesse nods—he still remembers it way too well. “And how I kissed you?”

“Right,” Jesse says. “That’s what Ms.—uh, that’s what Emma said. Only I’m pretty sure it was me that kissed you.”

Andrew says, “That’s what Emma told me you said. That’s where the miscommunication is. Somewhere within that night.” Jesse nods tersely and tries to ignore how his palms are sweaty and he’s feeling a little shaky. He wonders where this is going. “So, since it turns out that we both had the intention of kissing that night, I was thinking that, maybe, if you wanted, we could try it again.”

“We could do that,” Jesse says.

“Only…try not to kick me out this time.” 

Andrew laughs to himself but Jesse says with a straight face, “I’ll, uh, do my best.”

He wipes his palms on his thighs and takes a deep breath and before he has time to think anything else Andrew is kissing him and, soon enough, he’s kissing back.

It all goes very quickly and Andrew says afterwards, “Since tomorrow is a Saturday and all, what do you say Emma watches Sophia for a little bit while we go get coffee?” 

Jesse nods frantically and says, “That—that would be nice.” Andrew laughs effortlessly and kisses Jesse again. 

**The end.**

: :

**Epilogue:**

Jesse and Andrew date for a short while without Sophia knowing before Andrew begins insisting that they let her know. Jesse insists the opposite, trying to explain to him that it’s going to be _weird_ for her preschool teacher to also be her dad’s boyfriend. 

Andrew says, “Fair enough,” and then asks, “Well, what if we wait until summer, once she’s graduated, and then tell her?”

“No,” Jesse tells him. “That’s just as bad. You’re still then the only teacher she’ll have ever had—besides her old one, but that doesn’t count because she didn’t connect with her nearly as much as you.”

“So, we still can’t tell her,” Andrew states, sounding a little frustrated.

“No, not yet. But as soon as she gets into kindergarten we can tell her.”

Andrew goes on to insist that she probably wouldn’t care either way. Jesse knows with certainty that she wouldn’t. It’s more that _he_ cares, for his own weird reasons, and he tries to explain this to Andrew, who never quite understands but is clearly willing to compromise, because they agree to wait until her first day. 

It’s surprising and horribly scary to Jesse that he’s suddenly the father of a five-year-old kindergartner. The first day of school comes along amazingly quickly. For two weeks before it, it’s the only thing Sophia talks about (it’s also the only thing Andrew talks about, only for different reasons). Jesse is absolutely horrified by the thought of his daughter growing up. He knows it’s cliché, but it’s almost impossible to ignore the fact that it’s true. 

He lets Sophia get before school starts her first backpack—Dora, her new obsession. She learns to count to ten in Spanish and then tries to teach Sancho, explaining that, “They speak Spanish in Don Quixote, so Sancho wants to learn it.” Jesse asks her if she’s going to teach George Spanish, too. She asks, “Do they speak Spanish in Harry Potter?” Jesse tells her that they don’t, and she says, “We’ll see then, okay? Maybe.” He laughs and tells her okay and googles numbers eleven through twenty to start teaching her.

Then it’s the first day of school and Jesse still can’t believe it. He takes her into her classes and Andrew goes back to his preschool to teach his new preschool class. Jesse stops there to see him that afternoon—kindergarten gets out about half an hour later than the preschool does. Andrew smiles and makes sure with Emma that it’s okay that he’s leaving. She says it’s fine—there are only three kids left, so Jesse is sure that Andrew had few doubts she’d say otherwise. She very clearly knows it’s Sophia’s first day, and what’s happening afterward, because she shouts to Jesse and Andrew on their way out, “Good luck, boys!” They both thank her, but Andrew assures Jesse that there won’t be any luck required. 

Once they get to Sophia’s kindergarten, they see her waiting in her classroom with her backpack. She’s grinning widely (Jesse feared that she was going to have a whole new case of separation anxiety) and absolutely leaps up once she sees Andrew there with Jesse.

She asks a few questions at first (“Why is he here? How long is he going to stay? Can I show him the art I made today?”) and then gets distracted with talking about her first day of school and how it was “perfect!” Jesse and Andrew both listen and comment now and again and eventually they get back to Jesse’s and she eats a snack and then starts asking questions about Andrew again.

They try to give Sophia the most appropriate explanation possible, and Sophia says, “So you’re dating?” Jesse is absolutely _horrified_ when she says that, eyes wide and suddenly wondering _who_ taught her such a term. 

Andrew says, like it isn’t the scariest thing he’s ever heard, “Yes. Exactly.”

“That’s good,” Sophia states. “I like you and Daddy likes you. He’s always talking about how flawless you are and I asked him what flawless meant once and he said it means perfect. I think you’re flawless too so it’s ok if you and Daddy want to date.”

Andrew sort of beams at Jesse, and Jesse is suddenly blushing and wondering why he defined _flawless_ for his daughter and blushes some more. Andrew laughs and says, “You’re flawless too, don’t worry.” Jesse can’t say he agrees so he laughs and lets Andrew give him a quick kiss.

“Ewww,” Sophia says, and squirms a little before running away giggling. Andrew and Jesse laugh and everything has turned out to be so nice and perfect that Jesse can’t help but smile even wider.


End file.
